1. Field of the Present Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of designing and producing sewn products, and, in particular, to a digital platform for rapid product innovation and deployment of sewn products.
2. Background
A need exists for a digital platform for more efficiently bringing sewn products to market. This need is driven by three market factors. First, the textile industry lags behind other industries in adopting Internet tools to achieve supply-chain integration advantages. As reported in Textile World, the industry has experienced over-investment the past ten years in plants and machinery; under-investment in information systems, supplier/customer partnerships and strategic alliances; and product innovation; and slow response to growing global market opportunities.
Second, current solutions to these problems are inadequate. The current generation of e-commerce solutions consists mostly of trading exchanges for procurement of raw materials, components and finished goods. Current solutions typically only address order processing and tracking. Examples include ecomtextile.com and fasturn.com. While these solutions could potentially improve the cost of goods, this area has largely been addressed by offshore sourcing, and does not significantly address reducing operating cost. In turn, offshore sourcing has severely hampered the industry's ability to respond to today's rapidly changing markets.
Third, the current e-commerce model is inadequate. One provider of next-generation e-commerce tools, lectra.com, is a European company pursuing a traditional software business model. This approach would require that the U.S. apparel industry dramatically change course, to invest significant resources in systems, software, training, and product design talent. In fact, the strong trend is to neglect the product design and product management functions, challenging the existence of traditional players and fostering emerging start-up brands.
As a result of these factors, the industry has two choices—to invest significant dollars and resources in existing and emerging tools that do not address the real need. As a result, a need exists for an innovative digital platform which will provide value added fashion styling and technology solutions to enable rapid, cost-effective and collaborative product design and delivery.